


Barely Seventeen

by witchway



Series: The Thing That Lives Under The Bed [7]
Category: Iron Man (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Cuddling, Cuddling & Snuggling, Demon!Tony, Eventual Happy Ending, Fingering, Heavy Petting, Hurt Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Violence, Kissing, M/M, Oral Sex, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Sleepy Cuddles, Tony Needs a Hug, Trigger Warning: Quentin Beck Exists, quentin beck - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:01:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25294375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchway/pseuds/witchway
Summary: WARNING:  The Thing That Lives Under The Bed is, overall, a "Snugglefic."It is about scary things that go bump in the night.It is about scary things that go bump in dark, private places and the secrets you will gladly tell because you don't want anyone to know what happened in those dark, private places.This is a story about a young boy and an ancient spirit.  Both used to lies.  Both hiding surprising truths.But overall, this story is about those truths.And snuggling.  Remember, The Thing That Lives Under The Bed is about snuggling.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark, Starker - Relationship, Tony Stark/Peter Parker
Series: The Thing That Lives Under The Bed [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1823884
Comments: 25
Kudos: 69





	1. In The Bedroom Of Roses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mrstarksbaby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrstarksbaby/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Tony…I know she didn’t want boys to touch it,” he said, moving the box and sitting down on the bed. “…but… I’m not her brother. I’m not anybody’s brother. I had to touch it to open it and see what it was… we’ve been trying to only touch it with gloves on even though we don’t really have the right kind of gloves yet, we’ve ordered them, and we’re taking pictures of every page but that’s making everything so slow… and I sometimes… I just can’t help it Tony . I wake up in the middle of the night and go into the garage and just read it. Is that…? I don’t know….”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Perpetua and Felicity are famous Christian martyrs. 
> 
> A Ligação de Felicidade e Perpetua is my own invention.
> 
> David and Johnathan are famous Biblical characters from the book of Samuel. They were often invoked by medieval monks as why who men could obviously love romantically, and OBVIOUSLY that kind of love was superior than the love of a man for a woman. 2 Sam 1:26 reads "I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; You have been very pleasant to me; Your love to me was wonderful, Surpassing the love of women." Medieval monks liked that verse.
> 
> Katharine Bates and Katharine Coman are two real women who lived together for 25 years. You know Katharine Lee Bates - she is the author of "America The Beautiful."

**In The Bedroom Of Roses**

It was another agonizing week and a half before the next rainstorm. 

The moment Peter found himself standing at the decrepit portcullis he ran pell-mell for the bedroom. He must have taken the stairs 3 at a time. He ran so fast he arrived in the bedroom breathless, even though it was a dream.

He was holding Laura Foster’s spellbook the same way he held it in real life, nestled safely in a box. It was easy to convince others they couldn’t actually _touch_ the book, or at least should touch it as little as possible. It was, after all, over a century old.

As he gained the top of the staircase he glanced down at what was in his hands. It was not the actual box that they used to carry the book in real life. But Peter didn’t have time to analyze _why_ the dream had provided him with the crate that, a year ago, he had used to transport the dirty magazine into the pile of leaves, then to the lake. He supposed it made some kind of sense, though. He hadn’t wanted to _touch_ either book, full of pictures, full of forbidden secrets. But not for the same reason.

Peter burst into the ornate bedroom to find Tony sitting on the bed, looking nervous and apprehensive. He looked something like a child expecting punishment, or at least a child who thought he _might_ be expecting punishment. Peter put the crate bearing the spellbook between them. He willed himself to stop panting. There was no need for panting. He was asleep in his own bed. This was a dream.

“Tony, I need you to listen to me very, very carefully. I really, really, for-serious, Just-Say-No joke, _really_ , really need you to… to _don’t_ answer questions that will hurt you to answer. If you will be punished, or if it will cause you pain, just **_don’t_** answer.

“Don’t pretend you don’t remember, or try to distract me or change the subject, or tell me you’re too weak and need to feed. Don’t lie, don’t exaggerate, don’t try to trick me or give a complicated spell I have to find first. Just don’t answer the question. Don’t even shake your head or nod. Just stop talking. If it hurts, stop. Anything you can’t tell me I’ll figure out on my own. Do you understand?”

Tony considered Peter’s list of instructions very carefully. Finally, he nodded yes.

“Good. Now. Can you answer questions about Laura Foster’s spellbook?”

Tony opened his mouth, then closed it, considering.

When he opened his mouth and spoke his whole body sagged with relief. 

“Yes. She was not mine to protect.”

Peter found himself sagging in relief as well. “Because she wasn’t married into the family, not yet. Because she wasn’t a Post.

“Can you help me understand why it’s in English?” Peter asked. He was trying to be calm. Trying to not gesture so wildly with his hands. Trying to keep his hands from shaking. He wasn’t succeeding at any of these things.

“Ada and Enid both wrote their books in English and Portuguese. Laura Foster never learned Portuguese, except for what she copied into her book. There was great controversy among the women if it should be done so. Lavern despised it, although Justina tolerated it. Many arguments they had among them, oh so many. But when Laura asked, they gave a gentle answer.”

“Because they loved her,” Peter said, his brain overflowing with information. Information from Matthew and his great-grandmother. Information in Laura’s own handwriting. “She _was_ one of them. Ada, Enid and Laura, the Three Weird Sisters. She was practically a Post herself. 

“Tony…I know she didn’t want boys to touch it,” he said, moving the box and sitting down on the bed. “…but… I’m not her brother. I’m not anybody’s brother. I had to touch it to open it and see what it was… we’ve been trying to only touch it with gloves on even though we don’t really have the right kind of gloves yet, we’ve ordered them, and we’re taking pictures of every page but that’s making everything so slow… and I sometimes… _I just can’t help it Tony_. I wake up in the middle of the night and go into the garage and just sit on the floor and read it. Is that…? I don’t know….”

Silently Tony reached out and took Peter’s hand. He guided it into the crate and placed it on the book. 

He hissed a little, and closed his eyes. Then, in a moment, he opened them again and smiled. 

“It does not shun you. It does not shrink from you. Perhaps… perhaps…?”

“Perhaps?”

“Perhaps because it is not her spellbook.”

“It… wait… it _isn’t_?” 

Tony smiled gently. “It is crude and large and clumsy. Very ugly, she said. An ugly book could only make ill magic.”

Peter looked down at the book in confusion. It was large, yes. Very thick because of the thick paper. The pages were not all the same size, and the binding was of uneven stitching. He had assumed that’s what old books looked like.

“She made it herself,” Tony was explaining. His voice was loving and tender, enjoying the memory. “All Books of St. Cyprian must be handmade. Her true spellbook would be the marked one. The one Ada made her.”

“Where is that one?” 

“In Ada’s boudoir. Their two spellbooks lay together. That was the custom. Ada took them both with her. They are buried with Ada Post."

“That’s why… _that’s_ why it isn’t finished,” Peter said. “She didn’t like this one, so she _started over._ That explains all the blank pages.” 

Peter picked the book up from the crate and lay it on the bed. But even in the dream, he handled the ancient book gingerly.

“The list of spells are here,” he said, turning to the pages at the beginning, where Laura had listed the title of each spell in English and in Portuguese. “But the _spells_ aren’t all in here. There’s only a few. Plus a very long story about two lady-Christians who were fed to lions by the Romans. And lots of lists of names and dates and some notes in the middle. Then there’s all these blank pages. Then at the end… Tony…”

His voice broke as he said the words out loud. The wonderful, wonderful words.

“She made a _glossary_.” 

Tony smiled gently at Peter, but he clearly didn’t understand. “Is that a spell?”

“No…its… **_yes_ ** . It’s a _wonderful_ thing. It’s a list of words in Portuguese she didn’t understand… old fashioned words and plant-names and idioms… that’s a saying that doesn’t mean what it sounds like it means… _Tony she wrote it all down_.” He didn’t even fight the tears anymore. He let them flow as he lovingly turned the pages of his dreambook.

“Here,” he said finally. Coming to some of the lovely sketches Laura had drawn of two women, dressed in Medieval clothing, holding hands. “I found this, it’s the _a ligação de …”_ But of course, he couldn’t read the words now. It was a dream. He closed his eyes and tried to remember. “Oh! Felicidade and Perpetua. The lady-Christians who got eaten by lions. 

“You said _a Ligação de David e Jonathan_ was for two men. _A Ligação de Felicidade e Perpetua_ is for two women, isn’t it?”

“To be companions, yes.”

“To be _married_ ,” Peter said. “I couldn’t figure it out before. Felicity and Perpetua are saints, I got that. I read that in the library. But a ‘Felicity’ and a ‘Perpetua’ are each other’s _wives_.”

He found the page. The page where it said _A Ligação de Felicidade e Perpetua._ Under that, he remembered, was a short prayer, written once in Portuguese and then again in English. Under that, two names. Two names, and a date.

“They were _married_ , weren’t they? Ada had married Laura?”

He stood up again, breathless. His hands were shaking.

“ _That’s_ why Tom Dylan killed her. He wasn’t afraid she was going to run off and marry his little brother. He killed her because _she had already married his sister_.”

Tony nodded, his eyes downcast.

“That’s why Ada _begged_ you to take her life too. I thought she was mourning the death of her brother. She was mourning the death of Laura Foster…”

“If only they had performed the _selo da virgem_ after the _Ligação.” Tony said._ His voice was quiet and his eyes were far away. _“_ It was _always_ done in the old days. The spell was in their books. It was common for companions to perform it on each other. The _selo da virgem_ protects the body from any penetration… by a man. The Post girls were _very_ clever. The fingers, the tongue, the yard… _of a man_ , could never penetrate them. They were very clever, Beatrice’s daughters. 

“Poor child, if the seal had been performed upon her, his _blade_ would never have pierced her.”

“Is _that_ why he…” Peter’s stomach turned, looking back down at the picture. In Laura’s sketch the two lady saints solemnly held his gaze, one holding the other’s hand.

“…cut off her _hands_ and threw them in the river?”

Tony’s eyes met his briefly. In an airless voice, he told the story.

“He had taken her to the mountain, because it lay to the East. Because he knew the Eastern seals were the strongest. I could not cross them unbidden. But I _would_ have crossed them, _had she called to me_ ,” he whispered fiercely. “I would have shredded myself to _pieces_ for Ada Post. My _princesa_. My Felicity. 

“Her brother took both hands because he knew his mother could heal a strong body with the loss of _one_. But then he feared, could his mother, with my help, heal her _from the loss of two_ ? And so he cut her throat as well. He _bragged_ to me what he had done, how he had taken her beyond the seal. How he done more harm than either of us could heal. Then forbade me to speak of it until his death was done.”

“That’s why you didn’t hesitate to kill him.”

“I _did what I was tasked to do,_ ” Tony growled. His eyes were pitch black. “He lay down in her bed and tasked me to take his body, to leave nothing behind, not even ash. And so I lay on top of his body and I took the light from his organs, one by one.

“But first, _I took the light from his_ **_mouth_**.” Tony’s voice made Peter shiver in the dark room. “His tongue could not move. His voice could not command. Then I took the light from every bone. _One at a time.”_

“Oh god…” Peter moaned. “How long did it take?” 

Tony looked up at the roof of the canopy bed, thinking. “They were searching for him. But they did not begin their search until the next morning. It was long past noon before they came to the South House. When they came to the gate, I began to take his body. I was tasked to leave no mark. I left no mark. It was gone by the time they forced open the door…”

His smile was terrifying.

“I left no mark. But I did leave a _smell_.”

Peter shuddered. It was horrible, but he was glad. Glad that Tom Dylan Post had not only suffered, but had _time_ to realize it was his own fault for assuming that Tony would simply do as he was told. Realized it was his own fault for not being _specific_.

“So none of it was true,” Peter said mournfully. His heart felt full but aching. “She didn’t want to marry Abe Sexton, she didn’t want to marry any of the brothers…”

“She _had_ chosen Abe Sexton,” Tony corrected. “It was customary for the _Ligaçãos_ to marry with one another. Abe Sexton would marry unto Laura, and Ada would someday marry Sexton’s _ligação.”_

“So that everyone was… oh I get it. So that everyone was legally a Post. Is that… is that why she wasn’t yours to protect? Didn’t… ? I thought you said the bindings created family, and the family you were bound to protect.”

 _“That_ was the law of Lavern Post, when she did become the Matriarch. But in Abe Sexton’s 14th year, Nana Justina was the Matriarch. And the Matriarch declared that it would not suffice. That only after Laura married Abe Sexton, when he came of age, she should perform the joining in the ceremony of the Seal of Athanásio _._

“It was only two years," he said sadly. What was that? What was two years to Nana Justina, then more than 90 years old? Too late did she rue her ruling. She was beside herself with grief. For weeks she would not speak. For months she could not rise from her bed. 

“Until she fed the grief to me, Then, she forgot.”

His voice was far away, broken. He sounded like a man on the verge of tears. Very suddenly it occurred to Peter that there was only one thing alive on earth that was still in mourning for the death of Laura Foster. Suddenly he felt very selfish, standing there and demanding answers. He walked around the crate and gathered Tony up in his arms, pressing the man’s head to his chest. 

But when he let Tony go he saw no sadness in the face at all. Only expectation. “You have read it? My scholar? My library-pilgrim? It is English… Laura’s ‘ugly book.’ She, too, was a great scholar. You read all of my Perpetua’s careful studies?”

“Yes, it’s wonderful Tony. I just don’t understand why Tom Dylan needed to bury his rifle with her jewelry and her books…” 

“ _Her_ rifle. He buried all her treasures. Her mother’s jewelry and her fine clothes and what he thought was her Book of St. Cyprian, he did not know it was not her true one. He hid them. He told her he had taken them all to the mountain, where he had built their cabin. For when they were married. When she refused him, he took her to the mountain to retrieve them all. There he killed her.”

“And then he went back home… to die in the house he had built for her…”

 _“That_ **_I had built_ ** _for her!!”_ Tony hissed, his dark eyes flashing.

“Yes, I should have known that, I’m sorry,” Peter said hastily, pulling Tony’s head back to his chest. The red light that he saw in Tony’s eyes at that moment was more than a little disturbing.

But Tony only sagged into Peter’s embrace, wrapping his arms around Peter’s chest. “They built it for her,” he confessed. “Ada’s brothers. Built it for her. With Lavern’s blessing. I suppose Tom Dylan was among them. Her brother’s built the house, but _I finished it._ Ada whispered in my ear what it would look like. She performed the spell alone at midnight. Her _casa linda._ I made it for her. And she gave it to her Perpetua.”

“That’s why… those circular designs on the wrought iron, and the wainscoting, they explained it all to us when we bought the house. ‘Made by an unknown artist’ they said, and now there were paintings of it at the museum. We were told Evan Post copied those designs when he created our dining room table. But _you_ told me Evan Post did the big work and you did the fine work. _You’re_ the unknown artist.

“I saw the house,” Peter said, combing his fingers tenderly through Tony’s hair. “Your beautiful house. I saw it before you showed me. There are paintings in museums. The photos I have are in black and white, but I got the idea. The artists here must have painted it over and over again…”

Tony pulled his head up to look into Peter’s face, curious. Then he smiled fondly. “My intrepid library-pilgrim.

“Ah, yes, the artists. How often they made their pilgrimage to the South House. There was a road there once, and studios. More than one. For their easels and their brushes. One still remains -- you’ve seen it. You still dream of it.”

“I… wait… the shed? That was a… but wait. How could the artists paint the South House if you tricked them into burning it down back before the Civil War?”

Tony gave him a funny look. As if burning down a house would prevent the house from standing. “Ada rebuilt it. She and I. Ah… but _those_ paintings. That is not _my_ garden. That is the garden of Katharine Bates.

“They lived there…” His eyes went upward. “Forty years or more. My Ada and Katharine Bates, until she died. Then with Katharine Coman. Her _Perpetuas.”_

“Oh, I thought… so they were painting a _real_ house. I wondered if you had showed it to them in their dreams…”

Tony smiled. “I did,” he whispered.


	2. Secrets, Spells, Deceptions

“You can read it? My Master Doctor?” Tony asked, even as Peter climbed up into his lap. Peter wanted to curl up in Tony’s arms and be held. The last several days had been one long emotional roller coaster, and now he wanted physical comfort. This time, it was Tony who was full of questions.

“The spells?” he asked, moving his head away to avoid Peter’s kiss. “You have found them?”

“Yes, but I told you, the book wasn’t finished. There’s only five spells, and the saints' stories and her notes and a lot of dates.”

“The spells that are there, are they complete?” He looked around Peter’s body at the crate where Peter had placed the book.

Peter turned around to look at it as well. But inside the crate he saw, much to his dismay, a beat-up, coverless magazine. His traitorous brain had decided to provide him with the wrong secret book. Trying to appear casual, he swept the crate off the bed and onto the floor before Tony could see what was in it. 

“Let’s not talk about the book right now.”

“But the rain… soon it will be gone. Have you discovered how to disenchant treasure? _Can you?”_

“Well… no… it’s really complicated, Tony. I figured out the list of herbs, thanks to Laura’s glossary,” he said, his brow furrowed. That last spell hadn’t made much sense to him. It looked far more like a recipe than a spell. "Except I can’t figure out what “swallows herb” is…”

“‘Tis a little matter…” Tony said breathlessly. “It is the herb that can only be found where the swallow leads you...”

“Wait… barn swallows?! The _barn swallows_ are going to show me where herbs are??” 

“They will if I tell them too,” Tony said with a smile. Peter smiled back in wonder.

“Alright then, I guess I could do that, and I guess getting “streetwater” won’t be too difficult given how many potholes are on our road. But I still… _I don’t get it,_ Tony. I get the geometry, geometry’s easy. And I can boil up all this stuff but… _why_ am I doing it? It says to “baptise” the place where I think treasure is buried but… _how_ do I know where I think the treasure is buried?” 

“I show you.”

He laughed out loud at the look on Peter’s face. Then the two of them grinned at each other. Peter’s arms were around Tony’s neck and Tony wrapped his arms around Peter’s waist, and now he began rocking Peter back and forth as they grinned.

“I show you the spot, and you draw the mark, and anoint it,, and then you dig…” he said, his grin ever-growing. He seemed to find Peter’s surprise very amusing.

“But if I know where to dig then why am I throwing Rosemary-Ash and ...birdherb… streetwater all over the place!?” Peter cried out, kissing Tony’s smile and laughing at the absurdity of it all. “If you show me where to dig why don’t I just _dig_?” 

Tony seemed equal parts confused and amused by the question. “Because it is enchanted _against_ you!” he tried to scold, but he was grinning too much. “How do you dig until it is not enchanted against you?” 

“So… wait…” Peter pulled back enough to try to puzzle it out. “It’s buried… _and_ enchanted? So I can’t find it…”

“No one can find it if they do not _have the book.”_

“So… it’s just a secret password… from dead people? Tony, is there really buried treasure… just … buried all around our property? And you’re just going to show it to me?”

“For my library pilgrim, my Master Doctor. That he might build his own library… that he never needs leave my house, but stay in my house forever... ” Tony whispered. He used the hands he had pressing against Peter’s back to pull him in for a kiss.

* * * 

And so the summer of Peter’s seventeenth year was spent in the kitchen and digging holes because he had a “hunch.” Drawing the seals on the ground was easy -- Peter was good and drawing interconnected triangles anyway. After practicing it a few times in his notebook it could do the seal from memory. Cooking up ground-baptising water in the kitchen was slightly more difficult. Finding _ingredients_ for the water was easy, with Tony’s help. All the herbs grew on the property, great-grandchildren of the herbs planted by the Posts. So with a thermos full of rosemary-ash-buckthorn-sowthistle-and-swallowsherb water (the swallowsherb had been _ragweed_. Peter wasn’t sure if that was legit or Tony’s idea of a joke) and a shovel Peter set out to recreate his dreams.

His dreams of hole-digging. THOSE kinds of dreams. He had other dreams that involved Tony, but he tried not to think about those dreams during the day. 

The dealer in Ithaca offered Ben and Peter $500 for the can of old coins. They discussed it over lunch before making a decision. In New York City they might have made more, they knew, but New York Trips cost money in and of themselves. In the end they took the cash. Peter put the money in his wallet and spent the ride home feeling like the richest man in Devil’s Holler. $500 was a LOT of long distance phone calls.

Treasure digging was a deceptive practice, there was no denying it. In addition to finding excuses to get Aunt May out of the kitchen so he could cook his rosemary-ash-buckthorn-sowthistle-and-ragweed soup, he had to spend a great deal of time pretending to dig up random holes and come home with nothing. May and Ben could live with a nephew who went digging on “hunches” and occasionally came up with something. It would be too difficult for them to understand that whenever Peter _really_ dug, he always found what he was looking for.

But then the whole summer had been the whole summer of deception, it seemed. Pretending like he was digging randomly and coming up with nothing. Pretending all this time in the kitchen was him trying to learn to cook. Pretending he couldn’t understand half of what was in Laura Foster’s “diary.”

This _must_ have been what Clark Kent in the comics felt like, he thought. And the Incredible Hulk guy, whoever he was when he was being his secret identity. He must have felt like this, always. No _wonder_ Iron Man announced to the whole world his real name. Secret Identities were exhausting. 

And there were other, non-Tony deceptions as well. Covering for Matthew and saying they were digging together when the truth was Matthew was off wandering in the woods thinking his own thoughts. Covering for Mike and saying they were digging together when the truth was Mike was sneaking off with his girlfriend Sarah D. into some other part of the woods and no one wanted to know what they were doing there. Assuring Mrs. DeSlaughter that Matthew was _just_ swimming in their lake, and _not_ snorkeling (his new favorite obsession) when in fact Matthew was in their lake snorkeling all the damn time. He claimed he was going to find buried treasure in the lake just like Peter found buried treasure on the land. But so far all he had found was a large rock in the lake – which _everyone_ knew about because it showed when the water levels dropped.

Then there was the First Devil’s Church deceptions which were _really_ getting on Peter’s nerves.

In between his real job for Mr. DeSlaughter, his other job of digging up treasure and his hobby of studying Laura’s spellbook (not to mention covering up for the DeSlaughter boys) Peter did not have either the time or the mental room for First Devil’s Church activities. Unfortunately the Reverend Quentin Beck, back for his second summer as the guest-pastor, was convinced that summer time was a time of ultimate boredom for Devil’s Holler teens and had made it his mission to do something about it. Aunt May was very taken with Reverend Beck, and Peter couldn’t exactly blame her. He had movie-star good looks and soulful eyes. His sermons were actually interesting and he could make the whole congregation laugh as if they were listening to a stand-up comedian. Aunt May had even made noises about offering him a room in their large rambling house, a plan that Peter was desperately grateful never actually came to fruition. 

If the Reverend Beck made one more suggestion about which girl Peter should take on a date he was going to punch the man in one of his soulful eyes.

There was a spell listed at the beginning of Laura’s book, “How To Get Rid of a Bothersome Person,” but, like most of the spells, it wasn’t _actually_ in the book. Peter thought of it every time he had to come up with an excuse when the Reverend Beck called him on the phone to talk about some new youth group activity, or when he had to come up with an excuse to Aunt May as to why he wasn’t going to the newest youth group activity. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t like Quentin Beck himself, the man was personable and easy-going and wickedly funny. But every event was either a “girls choice” affair or a “group date” situation or at least involved Quentin asking Peter when he was going to work up the nerve to ask one of the girls at the church to the movies. Quentin Beck was absolutely hell-bent on creating “safe, wholesome” events for the boys to take the girls to. It was exhausting. Peter tried it _once_ to be polite, allowing Matthew to set Peter up with Sarah D.’s friend for a church outing to some inane movie. Peter had spent the entire time sitting on his hands.

More than once Peter read over the title of that spell, “How To Get Rid of a Bothersome Person” with longing, but ultimately, it probably wouldn’t work over the phone. And probably involved Rosemary-Ash-Buckthorn-Sowthistle and Ragweed soup.

When Peter dug up the army box full of gold bars, the deceptions seem to multiply like the rabbits Peter would someday build a hutch for. First was the fact that he had to spend hours waiting to come home, pretending that he had been digging random holes all day. Second was the way the little family planned their New York City trip that no one would know about, no more dismissive dealers from Ithaca for them (Uncle Ben was quite certain that man had played them for backwater rubes. In the city, they could go to more than one dealer.) Added to that the fact that Peter wasn’t supposed to tell anyone what they found, _even_ the DeSlaughters, a troublesome secret given how many secrets Peter was keeping _for_ the DeSlaughters. Then there was the hushed conversation about money in between Aunt May and Uncle Ben that Peter wasn’t even supposed to hear but that he couldn’t help but notice involved the name of the family lawyer.

All on top of the fact that Peter _hadn’t_ found one box in his dig. He had found _four_.

By that evening Peter truly felt like he was about to collapse under the weight of all the secrets he was keeping. In a weird way it was a relief when the Reverend Beck called on the phone just to chat. Peter found himself sitting in the kitchen and talking to Quentin for almost an hour. They mostly talked about the last Superman movie, about various comic books, and who made the best supervillain. Peter laughed and joked and relaxed completely. 

Supervillains, like superheroes, were things Peter understood.


	3. The Dark Trinity

**The Dark Trinity**

The trip to New York City with 3 of the 6 gold bars was quite successful. The first dealer offered them $350 each for them, the second, $375. In the end Ben and Peter sold all three at $400 each and considered themselves very savvy businessmen. They celebrated with a large lunch and a trip to Peter’s old school nearby.

At his school Peter made a discovery far better than the box of gold bars… well almost. The building was open for a summer event, specifically, a science camp where Peter ran into many familiar faces. But best of all Mr. Henderson, Peter’s old science teacher, pulled Peter into his office and begged him to take an empty slot in the science camp that would happen in the building next week. Uncle Ben, his wallet stuffed with cash, readily agreed. They drove back to Devil’s Holler feeling like Kings.

Even better, the sky was stormy by the time they got home.

Peter was sitting on his bed, trying to wrap up a long letter to Ned until he felt his eyes starting to get heavy. He was probably too excited to sleep. All this, and a Tony-night too? His life was brimming over with good luck.

Which is why he was only slightly surprised to find Tony emerge from under his bed long before he fell asleep.

“You’re here!!” Peter said, barely able to contain his excitement. He wrapped his arms around the silent figure and pulled him onto the bed. He all but lifted Tony’s light body up in his enthusiasm, kissing his face over and over again.

“Oh… but look at you,” Peter scolded gently as his lips brushed against the white hairs of Tony’s hollow, stubbly cheeks. "You’re all silver. _Methuselah_. I’m going to call you Oberon the Old. I’m going to call you Nana-Tony…” and so on and so on, watching Tony’s face carefully as he smiled. He loved watching sliver-Tony's crinkle-smile.

“Are you hungry?”

Tony moaned and nodded. Peter willingly stripped off his nightshirt and lay himself down on the bed like a feast.

Sometimes he rocked against Tony’s body, the way he always did when Tony fed, but mostly he lay still, enjoying the slow build of tension as he caressed Tony’s head and held him close. He couldn’t stop talking about all the incredible things that had happened to him since he had turned over one of the army boxes of gold bars. 

“But that’s all of the treasure, isn’t it?” Peter asked, a little sad. “That’s why I covered up the other boxes. For later, when we need them. That’s all that’s on the property, right? No?”

Tony was shaking his head. He pulled away enough from Peter’s witchesmark, and kissing around it as he spoke. “There are others, but I cannot take you to them now. It will take a team of men and horses for the rest.”

“Why, are they buried very deep?” He asked, but waited patiently for Tony to answer, preferring to watch Tony feed instead. With gentle fingertips he caressed the sides of Tony’s face, watching in fascination as Tony’s mouth moved. The ‘slow build of tension’ was becoming slightly more urgent.

Finally Tony lapped his tongue in one long stroke over the mark and placed a kiss on the it, which meant he was done feeding. 

“They are buried beneath mighty boulders,” he said finally. “I placed them there. It will take a team of horses to pull them free.”

“If you put them there yourself, can you remove them?” Peter asked, then he grinned. “Let me guess, you’ll need to be _fed_ , won’t you?”

They both grinned together. But when Tony started kissing a line down Peter’s chest, Peter cupped his cheek and brought him back. “Wait, before you do that, _why_ are you here? I’ll have to be very quiet, sometimes they come down the hall and use my bathroom now. I wasn’t worried because I thought I’d meet you in my dream,” he said. As he spoke he fingered the lines that would form when Tony smiled. He loved them, but all this silver and stubble usually meant that Tony was tired or spent, and either needed to sleep or recover.

Tony looked down regretfully, then back into Peter’s face.

“I must beg you give me leave, my Master Doctor.”

“What does that mean?”

Tony sighed and sat up on the bed. He pulled Peter to sit up with him. Taking one hand and kissing the back of it fiercely, he explained.

“I must beg you to give me leave, and let me rest, and do not call upon me, or meet me in dreams, for the Fortnight of the Dark Trinity.”

“I don’t know what that is but I already don’t like it,” Peter said crossly. “A fortnight is two weeks and it’s supposed to rain _twice_ in the next two weeks…”

“It is a score of days, and one.”

“Twenty one days? I can’t call… will I see you at all? What if there’s an emergency?”

“You have the fern seeds,” Tony said, nodding at the place where Peter had hidden them. “If there is a great need. But it must be a very, _very_ great need…”

Peter tried not to pout. He was seventeen years old, he was too old to pout. And 21 days was certainly less than an entire summer, which is how long he thought he’d be without Tony. But he had gotten spoiled with all his good luck, and it was very hard not to pout and frown as Tony explained it to him.

A score and one days without Tony, without dreammeetings at all. “If you dream of me, it will _not_ be a true dream. I will not listen to your books, or Master Ben’s cursings, or Aunt May’s dreaming. I will not be feeding. I will _not_ answer to you in dreams, even if you call me. You must give me leave _now_ to do this. 

“When the Holy Trinity of weeks is over I will come to you, very ravenous,” he said gently, reaching out and stroking Peter’s witchesmark with tender fingertips. “Very untoward, I will be, quite unseemly. Rapacious. Unmannerly. But you can bear that for three nights, can you not?”

Peter shivered a little. He knew exactly what Tony was talking about. Being in Tony’s arms while Tony was _lost_ , clutching at him and feeding ravenously, well, it was a type of thrill of its own. Especially when Tony turned his mouth _lower_ , swallowing Peter’s cock and his spend with greedy moans and impatient hands. It felt a lot like being Red Riding Hood in the arms of the hungry wolf. It left his heart pounding, but it also left him terribly lonely afterward. But if he knew it wouldn’t last…

“…as long as it’s only three days,” Peter said sullenly. “If you _promise_.”

“On the fourth day I shall become most civilized again. My _Shamhat_ , you will be my priestess. You shall tame the _Enkidu_. But for those three day I will leave your bed, with your permission, and feed in the forests at my will…”

“One deer per forest…” Peter tried to counter.

“ _At my will_ …” Tony insisted.

“Fine _two_ deer per forest. There’s a lot of other things to eat… just no people or pets or anything like that… and _why_ am I agreeing to this again? Why are you going to go starve yourself for 21 days and then come back acting all crazy?” 

“I will be so _strong_ , master,” Tony said, leaning in and nuzzling Peter’s face. His voice was thick and his growl gave Peter the shivers. “ _So_ strong. Strong enough to move _boulders_ . To perform _any_ spell in the book. I will serve you so well,” he murmured, kissing Peter’s face. 

Peter allowed it. He allowed Tony to kiss down his chest and then allowed Tony to kiss other things. This was how Tony ended discussions, this is how Tony got his way. Peter was very aware. He tried to think his way through what Tony had told him, but thinking when he was buried root-deep in Tony’s mouth wasn’t easy. Finally he gave up. It was always easier to think afterward, anyway.

Afterward Tony described the spell again and asked Peter to repeat it many times. Finally, fearing the late hour and his fuzzy head, Peter wrote it all down. It seemed to have a lot of rules, rules that Tony was very keen for Peter to follow. Especially concerning how he would behave when the 21 days were over. How he would only be able to answer very basic and specific commands, and how those commands should only be about feeding. Peter soon saw it for what it was, a spell that, if followed directly, would result in all the things Tony was promising now. A good night's sleep, and a hearty breakfast, Peter reasoned. Well, a 3-day breakfast. It seemed like a lot of work, but Tony insisted it would be worth it.

After Peter had read the instructions back to Tony and Tony was satisfied with them (and Peter was certain there would be no more trips down his hallway for the night) Peter pulled Tony back into bed with him.

“I love you… _eu te amo. Meu amante_. I’m going to miss you,” he whispered, keeping his fingers combed through Tony’s hair, keeping Tony’s face close. His tired brain tried to think of how to spend the remaining hours, knowing he wouldn’t see Tony at all for the next three weeks.

“Tony, the electrical problems they’re having in the other side of the house, the ones Uncle Ben can’t fix, that’s not you, is it?”

Tony grinned. “I am very good at turning lights _off_ , yes. But I have not. Master Ben wishes it fixed or wishes it damned. But I cannot repair it. If you send out for an electric-artist in the fall perchance I can watch him and learn the art…”

“That’s what I thought. There’s money to have it fixed now, I think. Maybe Uncle Ben’s too proud to hire someone. There’s something else I was going to ask you but I forgot,” Peter said, reaching out to touch Tony’s smile with his fingers. Soon he was kissing Tony on the mouth and had forgotten about everything else.

When Tony cupped his face in one hand, Peter remembered. 

Quickly, before he had time to chicken out, he took Tony’s hand and guided Tony’s forefinger into his mouth. Then he pulled it out, looking at Tony meaningfully. Hoping Tony would understand.

Tony’s smile was both knowing and tender. “Shall I make you _my_ beloved?” and Peter nodded silently, wondering why his heart pounded at the words. Tony wet his forefinger again in his own mouth and moved it gently between Peter’s legs with a light kiss on the mouth.

It was _nothing_ like the dream. Peter hissed as his body resisted the intrusion, but Tony’s face was tender and patient. He put his forefinger back to his mouth and seemed to whisper something to it, rubbing his two longest fingers together. To Peter’s surprise they began to glisten in the darkness. The next time Tony pressed his finger to Peter’s opening it slid in easily.

Peter’s eyes went wide at the sensation. He whimpered and threw his arms around Tony’s shoulders. He hid his face in the crook of Tony’s neck. But a memory from his dream inspired him to look down. He watched with fascination as Tony’s finger disappeared into his body over and over again with a steady, sure rhythm. 

Soon he was panting and moaning, gooseflesh covering his arms and chest. Wordlessly he moved Tony’s head downward, and Tony went down on him with an appreciative moan. He came with his fist in his mouth, trying not to scream. 

Coming for Tony a second time usually meant curling up in his lover’s arms, kitten-weak, and being held until he slept. But not this night. Tony was particularly amorous now, kissing Peter on every part of his face that Tony could touch, crooning a never-ending list of endearments and entire sentences in Portuguese. “My novice magician, my Master Doctor. _Amado_ . My gentle master. _Meu amante, meu amado._ My library-pilgrim. _Garoto eu amo_. My sweet Peter,” etc. etc. He seemed to be overcome with emotion. Peter looked up a little in confusion.

“You have made me your beloved, and I have made you _my_ beloved,” Tony whispered against Peter’s mouth. Peter nodded, although he wasn’t sure what it all meant.

He fought sleep, fought it as best he could, knowing that when he slept Tony would be gone. “I had all kinds of things to ask you, things from Laura’s book, but now I can’t remember,” he complained, snuggled in Tony’s arms. And the house… oh yeah… remember when I was 13, and we moved here, and you made that terrible noise in the basement? That was you, wasn’t it?”

Tony chuckled. “I sought to fright the family, to feed on their fear. My Masked Librarian. Your family… I thought I would truly starve.

“But the noises that keep coming from the room across from me, is that you too?”

“That is the house… what does Master Ben say? That is the house _settling_.” 

“I’m going to miss you, Tony. _Eu te amo.”_

 _“Meu amante, meu amado,”_ Tony whispered in response, which apparently meant the same thing.

* * * * *

The dream was horrible. Peter could feel his heart pounding, could feel the cold sweat on his body, even as he knew he was dreaming.

Tony was staggering through the sunny patch, weaving through jagged sunken fences. He wore a bloodsoaked white shirt, clutching his chest like a wounded soldier fleeing from a Civil War battle. Peter ran to him as he collapsed in the short grass and threw his arms around him, pulling him close.

“Tony, what did you _do_?”

“The house is settling,” Tony managed in a choked voice, sinking into his arms.

“Tony, stop,” Peter ordered, but that had no effect. Tony was still bleeding from the chest, the blood soaking through both their shirts. “I want this to **_stop_ **!” Peter shouted at the sky, shouted at the dream, but nothing changed.

“I conjure Master Tony and I _do not release him_!” Peter tried, still shouting at the sky. “I conjure Oberon, and Puck, and The Muse and Methuselah, and I conjure my friend Anthony, and I do not…”

But that wasn’t right. Conjuring meant to summon, and Tony was already here. So Peter tried another strategy. 

“I… I _un-conjure_ this pain! I un-conjure this injury… I... I _anti-_ conjure it! Yes!! And I _non-conjure_ all the German books, and any spell that hurts Tony. I _anti-conjure_ all the German books, I find the German books and I kick them in the kneecaps. I find them in the lake, I stomp on them, I piss on them. I absolutely go postal on the German books and then I throw them back in the lake! 

“Tony, oh Tony what are you doing, please stop,” Peter moaned, burying his face in Tony’s hair and rocking him back and forth. Tony’s shirt clung, warm and sticky, against their chests. But Tony had no explanation. “The house is settling,” he repeated, and nothing more.


	4. Crimson

Peter was very disappointed to find out that “The Dark Trinity” was just God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, except at night. According to Laura’s book, it was a typical spell performed at any time of year, a prayer to the Trinity, said after dark for 3 weeks in hopes the Trinity might notice. As much as Peter loved the late Laura Foster, he was getting a little tired of her constant prayers, Saints’ days and stories about dead martyrs. What was the point of being known in town as one of the “Weird Sister” witches from Macbeth if you were going to be so devoutly _Christian_ about it?

Peter stood in the empty room across from his (the one the family now referred to as “The Noisy Room”) and glared out the curtainless window at the sunny patch where Aunt May still insisted her garden would someday be. He glared out at his back yard. He glared at the approaching rain. He glared out at his world. He glared out at his bad dream that told him Tony was in pain but wouldn’t tell him why. Then he turned and glared back at his room where he was supposed to be packing for Science Camp and wasn’t because he was too worried about Tony.

Finally he returned to his room and collapsed dramatically on the bed, face first, with a moan. “Goddammit, Tony,” he murmured. “I am _not_ calling on you, but _eu te amo._ I miss you. I hope you’re okay.”

It was probably just a regular stupid dream, he kept telling himself. Tony had very specifically said these kinds of dreams were not “true dreams” and maybe this was just that. But in the end _he still couldn’t ask Tony_ and that was just going to make him crazy.

Finally, with a sigh, he climbed off the bed and started packing. A weekend trip to New York City was obviously a good thing. He was going to see at least 2 of his old friends again, and even better, it got him out of going to church. 

Church had been irritating Peter more than ever, lately, even more than having to wade through Laura’s constant Christian references in her spellbook. In the past, church had been a place to turn off his ears and study new words. And the Bible, as it turned out, was a fascinating read, and a perfectly reasonable thing to read while the preacher droned on about how God sent Ronald Reagan to purge evolution from the curriculum and bring back prayer in school.

But recently Peter seemed to have lost the inability to tune out what was being said around him, and everything that was being said around him was pissing him off. The newest threat to society (in addition to drug pushers and welfare queens) was the game Dungeons and Dragons, which the pastor of First Devil’s Church insisted would lead to demon possession. Peter found that laughable. Dungeons and Dragons was one of the best cartoons on TV. Besides, he had lived with a demon for five years and Tony had _never_ mentioned D&D.

It was also becoming very tiresome, being _constantly_ assured that everyone who was different was going to hell. Peter had lost all belief in hell when he found out Tony had absolutely no knowledge of the place. When he asked Tony about hell, he was amused to find that Tony would always answer the question with an entire paragraph in Latin. Sometimes with a grin, sometimes with a wink. He couldn’t, however, do anything other _than_ answer with that exact same paragraph. Peter had tried to get him to change his answer, but it only ended in laughter and kisses. Just like eating cancers without hesitation, without thinking, Tony had been taught to answer the question “What is hell?” in one way and could not deviate it. He wouldn’t even tell Peter what the words meant in English, dismissing the request with an inpatient wave of his hand. He had no concept of hell. He only knew what he had been forced to repeat.

“But then where _do_ you come from? The Infernal realm?”

“The monks called it the Infernal realm. In that place, it had no name.”

“And what was it like?”

They had been snuggling in Peter’s bedroom, and when he had posed the question Tony had tucked one arm under his head and gazed up at the ceiling, which meant he was trying to remember. He was silent for a long time. 

Finally, he said “There was no hunger there. The infernal vapors upon which we fed, they were everywhere. All around us, surrounding us. There was no lack. There was no longing. And we were never alone…”

He stopped and intertwined his fingers with Peter’s. “We were always together, around, beside each other. Underneath, atop each other. Inside…” He pressed their palms together obscenely. “There was no separation. No boredom. No loneliness. There was no ‘alone.’”

“It sounds… it sounds like you were happy there.”

“Was I? I had no knowledge of any other place to be.”

“But then… why didn’t you go back there when Evan Post tried to make you return?”

Tony looked perplexed at the idea, but instead of answering he reached out and traced Peter’s lips with one fingertip.

“What is this?”

“That’s my mouth.”

“But what _is_ it? Is it _rebro_ ? Rose-red? _Escarlate_ ? Judas-colored? _Vermelho_? Crimson? Scarlet? Damask?

“Is it _blushing_?” he whispered, leaning in for a kiss.

“Right now it’s ticklish,” Peter said, pulling away scrubbing it with the back of his hand.

Tony leaned back with a faraway look. “Where I was, there was no light. No color. No red, or scarlet, or claret, or maroon or burgundy. There were shapes, there were sharp edges. But there were no colors. There was no… _this_ …” He took Peter’s hand and moved his fingertips over the covers, then up to the wall. 

“No… surfaces?”

“No. No _this_ …”

He moved Peter’s fingers to stroke his own face, then the skin on his chest. (He tried to get Peter to stroke himself lower, but Peter’s fingers curled up and hid.)

“No… _textures_?”

“Yes, no textures.”

“Shapes, but no color or textures, _there was no_ **_art_ **!” Peter said, sitting up a little as he made the connection. “No artists! No wonder you didn’t’ want to go back!”

“There was no creation, for there was nothing to create. So there was no **_pride_ ** , no satisfaction. No satisfaction to the longing, joy of the discovery. There was no _desire_ ,” he whispered, pressing another kiss upon Peter’s mouth. 

* * *

Peter shook his head hard, trying to clear it, trying to focus on packing. For the hundredth time he looked at John Boswell’s book and wondered if he should take it with him. Since he was rolling in dough, now, he had bought his own copy and was steadfastly working his way through it. The problem was not only the title (WHY did it have to say “Homosexuality” right on the cover? Why couldn’t the title just be “Everything You Thought You Knew About Medieval Christianity Was Wrong?”) but there was the little matter of the fact that it was 400 pages and very heavy. But it would make a very good read for the drive to the city, and probably some good conversation starters with Uncle Ben about everything First Devil’s Church didn’t know about their own religion. Although it would _probably_ devolve into Uncle Ben’s favorite topic, how the church had run out of Cold War to frighten people with, and now needed new scary things, like “Satanists” and “the Queers are taking over” to fill the pews.

These days it seemed like every time Peter walked in the door of the Eli Road Baptist church, he wondered why he was even there.


	5. The Devil's Honor

****

**The Devil's Honor**

It was the morning that Mr. DeSlaughter gave Peter a ride home from the lock-in at church that Peter decided he was going to stop calling it “First Devil’s Church.” Not that his friends at Science Camp didn’t find that name hilarious. But the name was beginning to ring a little hollow.

The Devil, Peter was beginning to think, was probably more straightforward than the people he was driving away from. The Devil had more honor. Naming Eli Road Baptist after the Devil was probably just an insult to the Devil.

That was the only coherent thought he had as Mr. DeSlaughter pick-up truck drove down the bumpy road to Peter’s house. That, and the fact that the large potholes Mr. DeSlaughter was avoiding wouldn’t be filling up with rainwater anytime soon. It was turning out to be a dry summer, moving into drought conditions. Peter might as well have given Tony the order to sleep for his Dark Trinity. It might not rain until August.

Mr. DeSlaughter had dropped Mike off at home but Matthew had elected to stay in the truck to talk to Peter. He was still peppering him with questions about Science Camp. Peter apologized for his unnatural quiet. He blamed the lack of sleep. Coming home from New York City on Monday and heading out to a lock-in on Friday was probably a bad idea, he told them in a wooden voice. He _tried_ not to spend the ride home with his eyes wide open, his jaw locked shut. Tried, but probably failed. Mr. DeSlaughter noticed, and told Matthew to shush. Peter was obviously tired.

And he was. But that wasn’t the reason he felt shell-shocked, the reason he needed to get away. Peter needed to get away from Matthew’s chatter and get somewhere where he could think his own thoughts. Not his bedroom, however. Three-week-sleep or no, Peter wouldn’t dare think these thoughts around Tony.

When Aunt May and Uncle Ben greeted him at the door and asked him to sit down in the living room, Peter’s eyes went even wider with alarm. _Quentin had only kissed him 8 hours ago_. How could they have learned about it so quickly?

When Uncle Ben sat on the sofa, using the words “son” and “time to talk” Peter excused himself to the kitchen to get a drink. His throat had gone so dry he was practically choking. He glared at the phone on the wall, the only way they could have known. He _knew_ he hadn’t initiated the kiss (and he certainly hadn’t initiated that long walk by themselves out into the night) but right now it was hard to remember exactly how it _had_ happened. 

Only that, according to Quentin, it was most certainly Peter’s fault.

Aunt May asked if Peter was alright. In fact he felt like vomiting, but dismissed it as lack of sleep. He had not, in fact, napped at all at the church, but sat wide-eyed through the showing of the black-and-white movies that were played on the church’s VCR, gaping. Worrying. Thinking. Trying to puzzle out what Quentin had said. Trying to wrap his brain around the fact that it had been _his fault_. And also trying to comprehend how quickly Quentin could turn around and behaved as if Peter didn’t exist.

“It’s about the second box of gold you found, Peter. We wanted to talk to you about how to spend it.”

Peter’s entire body sagged back into the couch. For a horrible moment he was afraid that he _smelled_ of Quentin, that Quentin’s strength, Quentin’s sweat, was still clinging to him the way they had clung to each other in the woods behind the church. But no, this was just about the gold bars. That second box, which had yielded 10 bars of gold instead of 6, _had_ been a topic of great debate since had dragged it back to the house. Peter almost wept with relief. 

Until they told him the plan. Then he just gaped in confusion.

“Wait… wait… _what_?” he said as they suggested buying the Lovelace property. He looked back and forth between them and the hallway that he considered his ‘wing.’ 

“What about the plumbing problems? The ‘noisy room?’ Uncle Ben, half the house is in the dark.”

Uncle Ben took a deep breath and let it out.

“Son, the reason we’ve been so tight-fisted with the money is because we wanted to be sure you had your choice of colleges…”

“But that’s what my inheritance is for.”

“But we wanted you to be able to choose _any_ college. And if you went to California…”

 **_“No!”_ ** Peter startled all three of them when he shouted. He apologized and blamed lack of sleep.

“But Peter, you always dreamed of…” Aunt May scolded, but Peter cut her off.

“Changed my mind at Science Camp. I’m a New Yorker. I go to school in New York,” he said, mentally counting the gold bars in the next army box he still had to ‘find.’ That would buy the car. The car that would drive him home from school every weekend to be with Tony.

Uncle Ben chuckled. “Well, _if_ you change your mind, we’ll still have you covered. I had a _very_ long talk with Dr. Haberstein when I came to pick you up at your old school. We were… pretty disappointed when we talked to your Devil’s Hollow teachers. They…”

“Shot their thumbs off?” Peter joked morbidly. “Quit because they couldn’t mention Charles Darwin? Are currently a deacon at Eli Road Baptist Church and that’s why they can’t say the ‘E’ word?”

“…aren’t particularly knowledgeable about science scholarships,” Ben finished patiently. “But Dr. Haberstein still considers you the best student he ever had, and he was _very_ helpful. And once we know your college career is taken care of, we can make other investments.”

“Like fixing the plumbing in your bathroom so you can stop visiting my wing?” Peter said as cheerfully as possible.

“Peter, if we make a bid on the Lovelace property, and if we can purchase it, then we’d be helping Missy,” Aunt May said gently. “The money will go to her and she can use it any way she wants. And if she does decide to come back to Devil’s Hollow, she can still live in her childhood home. If she wanted to.”

“I guess the property is going pretty cheap, given all the murder.”

“It is _sinfully_ cheap,” Ben said. “And buying land is _always_ a good investment. 

“Peter,” Aunt May said gently, “...when we bought the homestead we really expected to take in boarders. That rent was supposed to help us with all the repairs the house needed. But as you know, no one except us crazy city-folk want to live in a haunted house. But if we had that extra property we could rent it out…”

“The murder-house? Is that better than a haunted house?”

“The Wickham’s are ready to move.” Aunt May was suddenly serious. “Hai-Pearl told me, if we owned it, they’d move in immediately.”

“Oh yeah,” Peter nodded. He had forgotten that John Wickham’s mother and Aunt May were phone-friends now. Being terrorized by Philip Lovelace did that to people. “John. I guess… John…” He shook his head to clear it. He was having trouble thinking about John. All he could think about was Quentin.

“...I guess John would like to move out of the neighborhood where people call him “Chink” even though his mother is from Vietnam….” Peter said finally. “But Uncle Ben, I saw Missy’s house years ago. It was in bad shape then, I can’t imagine what it looks like now.”

“Steve and I went over it while you boys were at church,” Uncle Ben said, referring to Mr. DeSlaughter. “We think it’s salvageable. With you three boys helping…”

“Oh _no_ Uncle Ben please,” Peter groaned. “No more _chainsaws_ …” 

“We’d pay you of course…”

“You’re going to pay me out of my _own buried treasure?!”_ Peter cried out, much louder than he intended. But then he put both hands out, fingers spread wide. He had read far too many fairy tales where a family used a genie to wish for riches, only to fight with each other when the wish came true. 

“No, no, no, I get it,” he said nodding. “I get it I get it I get it. If it helps Missy out, do that,” he said hurriedly. Maybe this act of charity would undo whatever sin he had committed last night in the woods behind the church with the preacher. “Let’s go for it.”

Ben and May looked relieved. Peter grinned stupidly. His body was vibrating with exhaustion, and he still had to puzzle out what the hell was up with the Reverend Beck, and all he could think about was going to bed. 

_A_ bed. Not his bed.

“I want you to do it, but on one condition. _First_ you fix your bathroom so you can bathe in your own wing. So you don’t have to walk all over the house in your bath towel.”

“Oh that _is_ our first priority!” Aunt May agreed. _Second_ priority is finally making my garden in the Sunny Patch, and _first_ priority is stop making trips to your wing. The ‘noisy room’ makes such a racked now-a-days. Honestly, Peter, I don’t know how you sleep at night.”

“And _if_ ,” Uncle Ben continued. “And it’s a _big_ ‘if’, Peter, but _if_ we could buy the property, _and_ we could rent out the house, and we could swing the college you chose, then _maybe_ we could buy Chimney Hill.”

“Our lawyer is confident it would work,” Aunt May said cautiously, as Peter stood up to leave. “If we owned all the property around it, the bank would be more willing to sell that whole strip at a reasonable price.”

“Then you could be honest about where you made your first dig,” Uncle Ben concluded. “But that’s too far ahead… these are very big plans, for the future. _Very_ big maybe’s.”

“Oh, I think it will all work out just _fine_ ,” Peter said, weaving his way toward a bed to sleep in. “We live in a haunted house, and we’re going to buy a murder-house. And we have very, very, _very_ good luck.”


	6. The Reverend Quentin Beck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...when Quentin kissed him, Peter climbed directly up into his lap, straddling him with long legs and combing fingers into Quentin’s hair, moaning into the man’s mouth and submitting himself to hungry hands.
> 
> ‘It isn’t wrong,” Quentin was whispering against his mouth, and his throaty, needy voice made Peter breath catch. “It isn’t wrong to be kind to each other,” he murmured as his thumb teased Peter’s cock through the denim of his jeans. His thumb alone was making Peter’s spine light up like a Christmas tree. Making his body vibrate with need.

****

**The Reverend Quentin Beck**

It was his four-day trip to the Youth Science Conference that put things into sharp perspective. 

Peter had been alarmed at first, trying to fall asleep in a strange bed that night. It had been _years_ since he had slept anywhere but in his own bed. But, in the end, covers were covers. Peter was always safe under the covers.

Under the covers (where it was safe) he daydreamed while he waited for sleep. Not his old daydreams, not the Superfriends In The Hall of Justice daydream. Not anymore. Now it was the Magician’s Duel daydream. The Patriarch, the cruel and unjust man, had put a goat in the circle. Not a special goat, just a boring, common goat, nothing appealing to Tony at all. But Peter, the Knight Errant, was the Master Magician. He knew all the spells. He had read _all_ the books. Even the scariest spellbook of all. Tony sliced his way in through the seal set against him with ease, devouring the goat in a spectacular fashion. The family cheered. The feast commenced. The next day at noon, Peter would inherit the family spellbooks. Peter would inherit Tony.

By day, Peter played games and marveled at science fair projects _he_ should have thought of and talked to college recruiters. By night he talked to boys his age about a million things, both in the noisy public rooms and in quiet private stairwells. The days were endless. Timeless. Peter wanted them to go on forever.

But what struck Peter the most about the long weekend, spent with his old classmates, spent with so, _so_ many new people, was fear. Fear about real things, fear about pretend things. He was particularly struck by how _afraid_ of the world the Devil’s Hollow boys could be. Afraid of skin colors, afraid of accents. Afraid of science, or of the “Dykes and Fairies” that were talking over the world. At the Conference Peter met kids who had actually _played_ D&D, completely unaware that it would give the Devil possession of their souls. During a long conversation with Dr. Haberstein, Peter was suddenly overcome with the realization; he hadn’t _talked_ to anyone of the Jewish persuasion in four years. In Devil’s Holler, “Jew” was the insult you _only_ used if you were ready for a fistfight.

It made Peter step back on to Post Homestead feeling seven feet tall and bulletproof. He was a fearless Native New Yorker, unperturbed by the petty fears of his peers and a week away from having a demon back in his bed. He stood on the shore of Post Lake and bragged to Matthew about his achievements in the big city. He even overcame his loathing of swimming and joined Matthew in a few illegal snorkeling adventures, _trying_ his best to see the carvings Matty insisted were in the rock in the lake. They sat on the tip of the rock, now visible as the water level dropped, and talked forever. Peter used to be embarrassed to shed his shirt in public, around boys _or_ girls. Now he beamed with pride under Matthew’s stolen glances, proud of the body he had sculpted. If _Matthew_ was impressed, he thought, Tony would truly enjoy it.

* * *

It was three days before the Dark Trinity was over.

It had been two times that Quentin had kissed Peter in the dark.

One hundred times that Peter had promised himself _that_ would be the last time.

He knew it wasn’t right, moaning into the mouth and clinging to the shoulders of the man who was _supposedly_ engaged to a woman back in Albany. And it certainly couldn’t be right to be doing the things in the dark that Quentin was paid to preach against in the light. But there was something _hypnotic_ about Quentin, something captivating about his eyes that made Peter lose all higher brain functions. It was the same captivating eyes that disarmed all the giggling church biddies up until he took their nephews and grandsons for long walks in the dark woods (Peter was well aware that he was _not_ the only one.) Peter checked the calendar daily. The moment Tony was back, Peter could stop dreaming about Quentin Beck.

The ride alone in Quentin’s truck that night was obviously ill-advised. But in three days, Peter reasoned, Tony would be back, and in two weeks Quentin would be gone anyway. And Tony wouldn’t be jealous of mortals, he had told Peter so. Acted as if it were obvious. 

They were presumably there to follow the old road to the South House, and Peter was regaling Quentin with all he had learned in his research about the Post family, but Quentin pulled over to the side of the road to continue the conversation. Peter wondered what the excuse was. They couldn’t even see the stars from here.

Quentin wanted to talk about Peter’s Science Conference, and about what Peter had gotten up to there, away from parental supervision for so long. Peter gave sideways grins at Quentin’s innuendo, didn’t argue with this lewd insinuations. He found Quentin’s attempts to keep him off guard amusing. Keeping up with the older man’s banter was Peter’s new favorite hobby.

He was a sophisticated New York City boy. Who’d had a grown man in his bed since he was 15. He was afraid of nothing.

Which is why, when Quentin kissed him, Peter climbed directly up into his lap, straddling him with long legs and combing fingers into Quentin’s hair, moaning into the man’s mouth and submitting himself to hungry hands.

‘It isn’t wrong,” Quentin was whispering against his mouth, and his throaty, needy voice made Peter breath catch. “It isn’t wrong to be kind to each other,” he murmured as his thumb teased Peter’s cock through the denim of his jeans. His thumb alone was making Peter’s spine light up like a Christmas tree. Making his body vibrate with need.

Quentin seemed to find Peter’s open-mouthed kisses against his face amusing, but Peter couldn’t get enough. Quentin _tasted._ He _t_ asted of salt and sweat and something incredibly human, and all Peter could do was want more.

Until he didn’t.

“What… _what_ … **_what?!”_ **Quentin practically shouted when Peter hissed and launched himself out of the older man’s lap, and continued to shout as Peter pulled back so far he was practically cowering in the corner against the door of the truck. “What’s wrong?” he asked, trying to sound patient, but Peter could shake his head, eyes wide. He couldn’t possibly explain.

“I want to go home,” was all he could manage.

“What the fu… you little cocktease, you’ll go home when you come back and finish what you started,” Quentin managed. He was calm, but all hint of charm or charisma was gone. “Come on, city-boy. I know what you do with the boys at ‘Science Camp.’ _Everybody_ knows. Come back here.”

“Going home, now,” was all Peter could manage.

Quentin rubbed a frustrated hand over his face, as if trying to scrub the anger away. Oddly enough, it worked. When he uncovered his face his captivating eyes were back, and he pulled out what was almost a winning smile.

“I’ll drive you home when you finish what you started.” He reached out and touched Peter’s shoulder with relatively gentle hands. “Otherwise you’ll have to walk home through the haunted woods the dark...”

“Oh? Okay, thats no problem,” said Peter, relieved, and let himself out.

Quentin called after him, of course. Called gently. Called charmingly. Shouted angrily. Gave orders. 13-year-old Peter would have been shaking in his shoes at the sound of an adult shouting at him. 17-year old Peter plunged into the darkness and headed instinctively for Chimney Hill. He knew Quentin wouldn’t dare follow him into haunted woods, even if the demon haunting them wouldn’t return for three days. Soon the lone chimney was in front of him, inky black against the night sky. It was probably a spooky sight, but Peter didn’t notice. Nothing on his property was scarier than what he was running away from.

It was a 20-minute walk from Chimney Hill to his house. For all of it Peter managed to stay angry.

It wasn’t easy, but he distracted himself with an old fantasy. It was a very old fantasy, almost two years old, about being the Post Brother who won all the magician’s duels. He had found the forbidden _Das Buch Rothenburg,_ the book hidden away from all the boys because the elder Posts had decided it was too frightening to be studied. He had mastered every spell and performed them accurately in front of the entire gathered family (for some reason, in his fantasies, his huge family looked like every student at Robert E Lee K-12) much to their awe and horror.

The fantasy, and the anger, lasted up until the very moment he got home. 

Sitting on the edge of a bed ( _a_ bed, not _his_ bed) he stuffed a pillow into his mouth and cried. He felt defeated and stupid and _childish_. He felt the odd, overwhelming urge to call Matthew DeSlaughter on the phone and apologize. He felt like a complete fraud.

Yes, he was a sophisticated native New Yorker. Yes, he was a city-kid and yes, he had spent two days of the Science Conference sneaking of into the stairwells of the building to make out with a new friend he had just made. Yes, he and that new friend had sat in the stairwell until the wee hours of the morning, talking very frankly about subjects that, only a year ago, would have had Peter blushing and stammering. And yes, Peter had secretly had a demon who took the form of a man in the bed with him for the past two years.

But nothing, absolutely nothing Peter had experienced, had made him ready for tonight.

Nothing had prepared him for dealing with a grown man’s erection. 

* * * *

For 24 hours Peter managed to stay furious at Quentin Beck. But for the next 48 he was furious at himself. He vowed to never step foot in Eli Road Baptist again. Watching Quentin turn on the charm, or go for a long walk with another boy (and Peter knew there were other boys) made his chest feel painfully empty. 

Outside of work Peter paced around his room, or the spare bedroom where he was camping out or the “noisy room.” He couldn’t stand to dig empty holes anymore, or make any more attempts to re-re-rerebuild the fence around Aunt May’s someday-garden. He tried to ignore the constant rattling in his head the way he ignored the constant rattling in the noisy room. 

But the night that Tony was to return he lay limply on the floor in despair. There was just no denying it.

Quentin had tasted of salt and sweat and _want_ , and it made Peter’s head swim. Just like Peter's new friend at the Science Conference, Quentin had _body heat_ , something Tony would never have. But there was so much more to it than that.

When Quentin’s tongue was pushing into Peter’s mouth, it was because he _wanted_ it to be, not because he was hungry. His hands would be rough and grasping whether he had eaten recently or not. And those rough hands were groping under Peter’s shirt for reasons that had nothing to do with feeding by skin-to-skin contact. Peter could feed Quentin a huge steak dinner with multiple choices for dessert, and afterward Quentin would still press his huge erection against Peter’s body. 

But not Tony. Since he was 15 Peter had been laying in Tony’s arms, legs tangled, skin to skin, sometimes only clad in what Tony called their “smallclothes” (and sometimes Peter’s smallclothes briefly slipped away as well) and Peter had never, not even once, felt Tony’s erection.

Tony served him. Obeyed him. Even volunteered to work harder for him and bragged about his accomplishments for him. Relied on him entirely for food. Called him “Master” because Peter had named him and called him out from under the bed.

But Tony didn’t **_want_ ** him.

Not that way.


	7. Demonic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony glowed with pride. He practically purred. He turned his head from side to side, placing kisses in the center of each palm cupping his face. Finally he took Peter’s hands in his, and kissed the backs of both hands firmly.
> 
> “I will serve you well, my master,” he said, his voice scarcely above a whisper. Then he was silent for a moment, looking up with dark eyes.
> 
> “Am I no longer welcome in your bed?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I warned you this series was about things that you have been TOLD are normal, but didn't used to be considered "normal." 
> 
> I'm sure you are just as disgusted as Peter to learn what most "treasure hunting" in America really was. But that's what it was. The Pilgrims did it -- wrote about it extensively in their journals when they found something. It was a common practice. Joseph Smith, who famously claimed to have found another Bible written on gold plates, found those plates while treasure hunting exactly the way Tony describes it.
> 
> Gross, isn't it?

**Demonic**

Reaching his hand under the bed and pouring the seeds onto the carpet was, he had to admit, so much better than feeding Tony trusting cats. He wondered what Tony would think about his herpetarium idea (although he learned, from Mr. DeSlaughter, that a collection of _only_ snakes would a _serpentarium_. Mr. DeSlaughter also asked if Aunt May had approved. Peter explained that he was waiting for the right time, but he didn’t say what time. Probably right after he “discovered” his next box full of gold.)

Peter lay on the bed, clad only in his boxers, stroking himself lazily, teasing his witchesmark with the back of one hand, steadfastly keeping his thoughts neutral. What emerged from under the bed was pitch black and vaguely Tony-shaped. He gave himself over its greedy mouth without comment. 

He wanted to remain stoic, of course, but the sensation on his witchesmark made that impossible. But he’d be damned if he rut up against Tony’s dark body like a dog. When he got close he took Tony’s head with both hands and, with two handfuls of hair, yanked his mouth away from the third nipple and down to feed on something lower. Peter absolutely couldn’t deny the thrill he felt when he forced his cock into Tony’s mouth, the satisfying sensation when Tony moaned and drank from him hungrily. Tony _did_ need him, after all. 

In his own demonic way.

When the feeding was finished, Peter repeated the action, tangling his fingers in Tony’s hair and jerking his head backward, looking down into the dark eyes. 

He knew his lines. He had them written down, and he had been studying them for days. 

“You will go now to Tuller Hill Forest, and Hammon Hill Forest, and Long Pond Forest. _You will_ **_not_ ** be seen. You will eat no more than two deer in each forest and feast, at your will, at what else you find, _if_ it doesn’t have a name. No humans, no pets. You _will_ be back under by bed before dawn. One hour before if you think you’re going to feed again. Do _not_ disobey me.

“Go,” he said dismissively, pushing Tony away by the handful of hair watched the smoke slither away with satisfaction. Based on what Tony had told him and his own educated guesses, Peter was certain he had done the right thing. The Tony that came out from under the bed wasn’t the same “civilized” Tony that he could expect to meet in 3 more days. 

He would wait until that Tony arrived before discussing their thorny problem.

By night, Peter slept soundly. By day he did the appropriate amount of work and puzzled over how to keep Tony from finding out about Quentin Beck. Keeping secrets from Tony wasn’t easy, and keeping frothing overflowing anger from him might be impossible. Peter tried to at least pretend to have an even keel about the Quentin situation, but it was a losing battle. He had heard from reliable sources that Quentin had spent the day after the truck-incident telling anyone that would listen that there was something _wrong_ with Peter. Why else would he be so blasé about walking through haunted forests at night? Maybe he had played D&D during his multiple trips to the big city? He had been left alone at that Science Conference, was he exposed to the teachings of Evolution? Was it possible he was under demonic influence himself? Peter couldn’t even think about the topic without being filled with rage. Couldn’t even get around the edges of it to think about it logically. Ever since he arrived at Devil’s Holler, Peter had been assured that he was a sissy, a pussy and a Nancy-boy because of the things he had been afraid of. But when he showed no fear in the face of what _they_ were afraid of, he was something much worse. 

But he knew he had to get his anger under control, and soon. He had to be thinking very clearly before Tony knew anything about the matter. 

Each night Tony became more “civilized” and each night Peter allowed himself to be a little more gentle. By the third night Tony was speaking again, asking for more time together, hinting for more affection. Peter sent him out hunting meat instead. He wanted his demon to be well fed before they had a meaningful conversation.

On the fourth night, when Tony stood at his bed fully formed and fully dressed, looking very much like a boy a few years older than Peter himself, Peter told him so.

“You’re going to go to Hammon Forest and eat your fill,” he said quietly. He was sitting on the edge of his bed and had instructed Tony to kneel on the floor, and had fed him that way. (And, to be honest, had let Tony feed lower as well. He reasoned it would make it easier to think if he wasn’t horny.) “Be back at midnight, and wake me up. We need to talk.”

* * *

At midnight Tony knelt obediently beside the bed. Peter couldn’t help but hold his friend close when he fed. He didn’t want to help it. He didn’t try to stop himself from stroking the jetblack hair, from kissing the top of Tony’s head.

“You’re so _pretty_ now,” Peter murmured, stroking Tony’s young face. “But I think I miss your beard.” Tony turned from the witchesmark to kiss Peter’s hand. Peter used the opportunity to lift Tony’s face and compliment his lovely dark eyes. They reminded Peter of the boy at the Science Convention from DC who wore eye makeup and openly argued about politicians that were “in the closet.” Peter had never been in a stairwell alone with _that_ boy, but he had certainly thought about it.

“I am young and strong for you, sweet Peter,” Tony finally said when the feeding was finished.

“Can you lift boulders now?”

“I can _destroy_ them for you. I will turn them into pebbles at your feet. I will make them sand at noonday. The boulder that lies at the northwest corner of the house will melt like _wax_ beneath my hand as soon as you disenchant the treasure, Master Peter.”

Peter smiled tiredly. Just then, he didn’t feel like digging up treasure anymore. He felt like curling up in Tony’s arms and forgetting about the world.

“What’s buried there?” he asked politely, stroking Tony’s young face.

“The body of the child Laurence Mountain Post, who was buried with his father’s watch and his mothers…”

“ _Tony?!_ ” Peter sat up, startled. “That’s… a _dead body_?”

“But it’s _treasure_ , Master Peter.”

“No, it’s the property of the dead.”

“But… that _is_ treasure,” Tony explained, obviously confused. “That is what Levi and Nathanial and Asher Post did find… they were famous for it… I showed them…” Tony looked into Peter’s face, obviously perplexed. 

Peter was equally bewildered. “They got rich… off of robbing dead bodies?”

“They were burial mounds... Mohawk, and Seneca, and Iroquois... ”

Peter covered Tony’s mouth with one hand, eyes wide. But then he kissed Tony on the top of his head and, stroking his face and hair, changed his tone.

“That was _good_ , Tony,” he said. He didn’t mean it, but the hurt in his friend’s eyes was too much to bear. “You were a very _good_ treasure hunter. You made your masters very famous. But now -- new house rule! _Don’t_ let me dig up any dead bodies. That would be... it would upset Aunt May too much.”

“But I am so _strong_ master,” Tony complained, crestfallen. 

“Oh, you’re still going to destroy the boulder at noonday. I’ll dig up a shovelful of pebbles. I’ll keep them in a jar on my shelf as a trophy for how strong you are.”

Tony glowed with pride. He practically purred. He turned his head from side to side, placing kisses in the center of each palm cupping his face. Finally he took Peter’s hands in his, and kissed the backs of both hands firmly.

“I will serve you well, my master,” he said, his voice scarcely above a whisper. Then he was silent for a moment, looking up with dark eyes.

“Am I no longer welcome in your bed?”

Peter closed his eyes. When Tony looked at him like _that_ it was very difficult to remember what he was going to say, or remember anything at all. He pulled away and pulled Tony onto the bed with him, but instead of laying down he sat crosslegged on top of the covers. Tony followed suit and sat in front of him, their knees touching.

“Tony, you don’t want me,” Peter said as gently as he could.

The look on Tony’s face he had seen before. Should have anticipated. It was the look of a creature valiantly trying to understand and being frustrated at his inability to understand. He often got that look when Peter tried to explain American politics. Peter couldn’t stand to look at it now so he sat up, quite suddenly, and pulled Tony’s head to his chest so he wouldn’t have to see.

“I’m _not_ mad at you. You never lied to me about what you were. You always told me… as best you could. With the words you knew. It’s not your fault. You can’t help being what you are. But it just… it hurts a lot right now. That you can’t want me the way I want you.”

Tony stayed motionless in Peter’s arms, allowing himself to be held. He was quiet for a long time. When he finally spoke, he moved his hand, and touched Peter very gently on the elbow.

“ _Want_?" he said quietly.

“…what is…?”

Peter smiled and sobbed at the same time, squeezing Tony’s head fiercely. How he longed to be that 15 year old boy again, laying on his bedroom floor and having long conversations with the thing under his bed, trying to teach it words. But teaching the thing words like “sun” and “chemistry” was easy. Words like "sun" and "chemistry" were easy to define. Some words were just impossible.

He couldn’t answer, so he kissed Tony instead. Tony wrapped him up in powerful, muscular arms and Peter melted underneath him. He felt like he hadn't been kissed in a year. He felt like he hadn’t been kissed in his entire life. For a long time he let Tony kiss him and didn’t worry about anything else.

But kissing to get out of an answering a question was _Tony’s_ ploy, and while it usually worked on Peter it didn’t work on Tony at all. In time Tony was caressing Peter’s face and asking the question again.

“Master? What does ‘want’ mean?”

Peter sighed. Even now, lying so closely together, it seemed so obvious. The fact that Peter had missed it made him feel unbearably foolish and naïve. He closed his eyes and turned his head.

“Tony, when two boys… I mean when two men, two human men, want each other they… get erections.” He took Tony’s hand and guided it down to the subject in question. “A man… a man’s _yard_ … gets erect. Because they want each other.”

Tony was silent for a long moment. Then he moved his hand to touch Peter’s chin, moving his face very gently upward.

Tony’s face was very young now, but his eyes were still wise and tender and kind. Peter realized he had seen that look before, on the night that Tony admitted he had been haunting the house that Peter was living in. “I am the author of all your sorrows,” he had said that night. 

Tonight, he was struggling to say something else.

He opened his mouth, and then closed it. Finally he gave up. He took Peter’s hand and guided it between his legs. Peter moaned a little as Tony’s thighs parted and his hand rested…

… on nothing at all.

Peter gasped and flinched and jerked his hand away. Tony _wasn’t_ smooth like a barbie doll. Tony simply didn’t exist in a certain place. For a terrible moment Peter had felt like his hand had left the room. But Tony’s arms were still strong and solid around him, so he shook off the sensation even as he blinked in surprise.

“My novice-magician. When you were a child you showed me the face I should bear. How long I struggled to form it, so long. Fought to make that face even before I made a voice. So long you had to feed me with laughter and tears and anger before I could make it that face you wished for, and then it was so thin, so pale. A shadow of the face, even in your dreams. But my hand had already been made, and when you held my hand, when you fed me with your trust, I could bear that man’s face. It pleased you so.

“But I could not keep it from aging, no matter how I strived. But my gentle Peter…” He leaned forward and kissed Peter’s head. “Believed the old face to be beautiful as well. How I strived to bring him this young man’s body, and _even now_ he wishes my beard to return…” Tony teased with a smile.

“But I didn’t… I never saw…” Peter touched Tony’s face with wonder. “I never saw your face before. Before I saw it that first time in my dream…”

“You did. It was in a magazine in which you read about a very astute man, clever and handsome. A Master Doctor, finishing his studies at in important university at remarkably young age. You longed to be like him, a Master Doctor of a remarkably young age. You thought him dashing and beautiful. I tried to make his face, but I failed. My face was thin and pale and made of shadows. Yet you loved it. It made you content.

“But my novice-magician, _you never gave me a man’s yard_. You gave me hands…” He tangled his fingers with Peter’s fingers. “You gave me legs,” he said, using one leg to pull Peter’s leg in-between his.

“You gave me a castle to find you in,” he said, leaning in for a kiss. “And a bed to lie in beside you. But you never gave me a man’s yard to dally with. I’ve been waiting patiently, _amado_. I am very patient. Someday my novice magician will finish making his familiar. Then I will be complete.”

“But I didn’t… you didn’t… I haven’t… I…

“ _Wait_ are you saying…?” Peter swallowed hard, his head swimming, his heart pounding, at the possibilities. 

Tony smiled at Peter’s inability to speak. He clearly knew what was on the boy’s mind.

“It can be anything…” he whispered with a sly smile. “The beam of light that the Fae hide until the spring, the monstrous need of the Wendigo. The knotty urgency of the werewolf. Or something that my novice-magician has invented. Lysander enjoyed a mans-yard the length of a…”

Peter covered Tony’s mouth with one hand, eyes as wide as saucers.

“Do not tell me what Lysander wanted!”

“Can I tell you of Nehemiah?” Tony asked from behind Peter’s hand teasingly.

“No. _Nope_. Uh-uh. No. Don’t tell me about Lysander, or Nehemiah, or Simeon, or Ada Post. Because… because that would be rude. Telling me their secrets. Be polite and keep their secrets, Tony.

“And I… I guess…”

Peter tried to take a deep breath, but his head was spinning too badly. He pushed away from Tony’s embrace a little and tried to think straight, clearing his head. The possibilities were endless, _too_ endless. He couldn’t even think of where to begin

But when he looked back at Tony, he only saw his friend looking back at him. And that made it easier to decide.

“Could we… do you think…

“Could we just start out…

“Could it just look like mine?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the book. Thank you for reading this far. Since you cannot leave ANOTHER kudo, leave a comment!!
> 
> HOWEVER this is NOT the end of Peter's adventures... obviously... The NEXT book in the series, Seventeen Actually, comes next.
> 
> \----------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Some AO3 authors do not care for constructive criticism. Constructive criticism must be requested.
> 
> I HOWEVER FEED ON IT THE WAY A DEMON FEEDS ON LIGHT so please, PLEASE, feed me your questions, your confusion, and your constructive crit -- I am constantly trying to improve my work.  
> \---------------------------------------------------
> 
> This is me on Tumblr:
> 
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/thestarkerisobvious
> 
> Come by -- we'll discuss how disgusting it was that the Pilgrims went around digging up Native American graves and writing about all the cool stuff they found.

**Author's Note:**

> This is me on Tumblr:
> 
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/thestarkerisobvious
> 
> Come by and we'll compare spellbooks.


End file.
